No group of former athletes throws hate at its sport and league with more venom and frequency than ex-NBA stars. They just can’t help themselves.
From Charles Barkley consistently spewing an eye-rolling stream of blah about the state of the NBA, or that jump shooters can’t win a championship, or whatever else irks him; to Michael Jordan’s halfhearted compliments for most superstars of this era; to anybody who played in the late 1990s and 2000s calling today’s NBA and of its players soft.
Now Oscar Robertson is piling on.
Stephen Curry has been the hangnail that many of these former stars can’t stand and can’t get rid of. They surely aren’t going to listen to the media talk about the Golden State Warriors star being an all-time great.
Because, what 6-foot-nothing, skinny jump shooter belongs in that club?
He’s not dunking over 7-footers. He’s not soaring to grab rebounds over the most athletic players in the league.
He’s shooting jumpers.
And that’s not all that impressive, they say. For all time or any time.
Robertson blurted this during an interview on ESPN’s “Mike & Mike” show last week: “If I’ve got a guy who’s great shooting the ball outside, don’t you want to extend your defense out a little bit? I just don’t think coaches today in basketball understand the game of basketball. They don’t know anything about defenses. They don’t know what people are doing on the court.”
Robertson wasn’t done.
“When I played years ago,” he said, “if you shot a shot outside and hit it, the next time I’m going to be up on top of you. I’m going to pressure you with three-quarters, half-court defense. But now they don’t do that. These coaches do not understand the game of basketball, as far as I’m concerned.”
In the eyes of his older peers, Curry may be the most under-appreciated star of all time. Their level of respect for him is so low, an ant couldn’t limbo under it. His dominance is about skill, not overwhelming athletic prowess, and that goes against everything they witnessed or played against.
They saw players Curry’s size as nonfactors in their day. They were the guys Robertson, Barkley and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (all critical of Curry and the Warriors) trampled as they bullied their way to the basket.
But Curry, in a league where the athletes are bigger, faster and stronger than they’ve ever been, can’t be. And so the rules are blamed. No more Derek Harper-esque hand checking means no defense, they say. They long for a return to the most unwatchable period of the NBA, when teams fought all the time and cheap-shot fouls were seen as badges of honor.
Never have they considered this: Curry is that good. He is.
Extend your defense to what, 50 feet? Going into Saturday the Davidson product was a remarkable 35-of-52 (67 percent) on shots from 28 to 50 feet. Good luck pressing up on that while Curry is then driving by you and collapsing your defense. Curry doesn’t need the ball. He’s as deadly on the catch-and-shoot play as he is on the pull-up jumper. Coaches have played zone against him, box-and-one against him, and put all their best defenders on him. Defenses are more difficult to decipher than at any other time in league history … and Curry keeps putting up huge numbers.
He is great.
It’s just a shame that the people who should appreciate him the most, those who played, do nothing but trash him.
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@ or @dempseypost
Spotlight on …
Kyle Lowry, Raptors guard
Lowry, a 6-foot point guard from Villanova, is The Denver Post’s NBA player of the week for the first full week of games after the all-star break.
What’s up: Lowry was brilliant in four games, averaging 26.0 points, 8.3 assists, 5.3 rebounds and 1.5 steals. He was hot from the field, shooting 56.7 percent (including 39 percent on his 3-point attempts). The Raptors won all four games, and he made the winning shot in one.
Background: The week boiled down to the importance of the all-star showing up for one specific game — Friday night against Cleveland. Lowry poured in a career-high 43 points and also had nine assists, five rebounds and four steals. Lowry did it all. That included making the winning shot, a jumper with 3.8 seconds left that lifted the Raptors to a 99-97 victory over the Cavaliers in Toronto.
Dempsey’s take: Lowry, 29, is getting the success he deserves. It hasn’t always been an easy — or smooth — road for the former first-round draft pick. But his tale should be emulated by players who have found things rough in the early stage of their careers. That is, keep working and keep making an honest effort to improve as a person and leave mistakes in the rearview mirror, never to be repeated. Lowry is the personification of doing all of those things, and that has allowed his talent to shine.
